Arkansas Amendment Threatens Petition “Cure” Period

Thu, Apr 11 2013 by Neal Hobson

When laws are broken, what’s the best response? Should we prosecute the law-breakers?

Or pass yet new laws?

Unfortunately, not a single “bad actor” has been prosecuted for any of the alleged acts of fraud. Not one. Instead, Arkansas legislators have proposed new laws to punish the good citizen seeking to take part in the political process right along with the bad actor.

In 2012, allegations arose against two petitions – one to raise taxes on natural gas and another to authorize a new casino – suggesting that those involved forged signatures in order to have enough raw signature lines filled out to qualify for the “grace” or “cure” period. In Arkansas, initiative petitions that turn in more than the minimum number of signatures required by state law are allowed 30 additional days to gather more signatures, if and when the Secretary of State’s office, which performs the signature validation, disqualifies enough signatures to push the petition below the requirement.

This grace or cure period, as it’s called, is very helpful to grassroots efforts, which generally cannot afford to go way over the required signature threshold to protect against some of the signatures not being from registered voters. The cure period allows those who are close to qualifying just a little more time to show the necessary public support.

Generally, the number of valid signatures on petitions in Arkansas and across the country is closely connected to the percentage of the adult population that is registered to vote. In most places, between 70 and 75 percent of the signatures gathered are verified as belonging to registered voters.

But on these two 2012 petitions, the Secretary of State found barely 30 percent of the signatures to be valid. Though both measures may have qualified for the grace period fraudulently, neither measure was able to gather enough signatures during the 30-day grace period to actually qualify for the ballot.

Senate Joint Resolution 16 is designed to prevent such shenanigans from happening again. The constitutional amendment, which if passed by legislators will be on the November 2014 ballot, requires that only petitions with 90% of the required number of signatures will qualify for the grace period.

While its goal is worthwhile, SJR 16 goes way too far. It will prevent fraudulent efforts – with 30% validity from qualifying for grace period, but it will also prevent most grassroots groups of volunteers doing everything legally, correctly and ethically from qualifying for the grace period.

If the measure required initiative petitions to have 70 or 75 or even 80% of the minimum requirement to earn the grace period it would have stopped the bad actors, while not punishing good people working to take part in their political process – those legislators have referred to as “the little old ladies.”

Citizens in Charge opposes SJR 16 and hopes the legislature will defeat this amendment and come back with one designed to block fraud without blocking the rights of citizens to petition their government.

Read More: SW Times

And at TalkBusiness.net

Find text of the bill:

http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2013/2013R/Bills/SJR16.pdf